1. Field of the Invention
The present invention provides an apparatus and method for reducing the size of a material. The apparatus and method may also reduce moisture content of a material.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are several apparatus described for processing a material without mechanical action in order to reduce the particle size of the material. Most of these apparatus consist of an inlet tube, a cyclone chamber with an impeller fan for pulling air and the material to be processed through the system. The high pressure air stream is used to create a vortex in the cyclone chamber which entraps the material and holds it in a cyclonic suspension in which the material is fractionated.
An example of such an apparatus is described in WO 98/35756. WO 98/35756 describes a machine with a cyclonic chamber of adjustable length to tune the apparatus to achieve a standing wave at a particular harmonic frequency generated by a fan. It is stated at WO 00/24518 that the process of WO 98/35756 has a number of difficulties, the main one being that the physical processing which occurs in the cyclone chamber does not degrade all the material into the required size and as a result, undegraded material exits the chamber and hits the impeller. The force with which this occurs causes the fan to last no more than a few hours, even when constructed from the strongest of materials known to man.